Bytes: What’s new in tech

New Xbox options

Are you dreaming of a white Xbox? asked Tom Warren in TheVerge.com. Microsoft has long reserved a special-edition white Xbox One for its employees, but there were reports last week that it will put that option on the market later this year alongside the traditional black version. And there may be more innovation in the works. Microsoft is said to be developing a 1TB version of the Xbox One for a November release, and may be planning a no-disc version, which would make it the first modern-day console to abandon disc-based gaming. “While it’s unclear if a disc-less Xbox One will make it to market” soon, Microsoft has been testing versions without a Blu-ray drive.

Fashion-forward Google Glass

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Google Glass is getting a new look, said Mark Wilson in FastCompany.com. While the product’s technological potential “has always been incredible,” getting a broad range of customers to adopt nerdy-looking eyewear has proved to be a challenge. Now Glass’s lead designer “is taking the design mainstream,” adding new frames that Google hopes will make the product “more wearable to everyone outside the Valley” when it hits shelves later this year. Google’s new designs are “more typical contemporary titanium frames called Bold, Curve, Thin, and Split.” But Google’s own designs are just a small taste of what could come. Since the Glass technology is “designed to be modular,” any designer could, theoretically, make Glass-compatible frames, opening up endless possibilities for the fashion-forward tech set.

Massive Yahoo hack

Bad news for Yahoo Mail users, said Mark Hachman in PCWorld.com. The Internet giant said last week that it detected a massive hack attempt. On its Tumblr account, the company said that hackers were able to obtain an undisclosed number of usernames and passwords for the Yahoo Mail service, likely by attacking an external, third-party database. “Users who have been affected, unsurprisingly, will be asked to change their password.” Yahoo did not say how many accounts were compromised, but said it will notify users about the hack and use secondary sign-in verification to help users “resecure their accounts.” The company also said it was working with law enforcement to identify the hackers “and would take further precautions to prevent this from happening again.”